Bruins goalie Tim Thomas passed on meeting with Barack Obama last year. He couldn't miss the president's face last night.

Thomas protested when his Stanley Cup winning teammates went to the White House saying the Federal goverment had threatened the rights and liberties of its citizens.

So Cap fans reminded him of his "free citizen" rights by peppering the Verizon Center with posters and masks with the president's face on them.

"What did Wayne Gretzky say? You miss 100 percent of the shots you don't take. This was too much of an opportunity to pass up," Mike Holden of Rockville, Md., told Stephen Whyno of the Washington Post. "We had Timmy coming to town, and he wants this issue to go away, and we figured we'd put it right in his face."

The HUD rigging scandal consisted of Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Samuel Pierce and his associates rigging low income housing bids to favor Republican contributors to Reagan's campaign as well as rewarding Republican lobbyists such as James G. Watt a former Secretary of the Interior. Sixteen convictions were eventually handed down, including the following:

James Watt 1.James Watt, Reagan's Secretary of the Interior was indicted on 24 felony counts and pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor. He was sentenced to five years probation, and ordered to pay a $5000 fine.
2.Phillip D. Winn - Assistant HUD Secretary. Pleaded guilty to one count of scheming to give illegal gratuities.; pardoned by President Bill Clinton, Nov., 2000
3.Thomas Demery - Assistant HUD Secretary - pleaded guilty to steering HUD subsidies to politically connected donors. Found guilty of bribery and obstruction of justice
4.Deborah Gore Dean - executive assistant to Secretary Pierce - indicted on thirteen counts, three counts of conspiracy, one count of accepting an illegal gratuity, four counts of perjury, and five counts of concealing articles. She was convicted on twelve. She appealed and prevailed on several counts but the convictions for conspiracy remained.
5.Joseph A. Strauss, (R) Special Assistant to the Secretary of HUD, convicted for accepting payments to favor Puerto Rican land developers in receiving HUD funding.
6.Silvio D. DeBartolomeis convicted of perjury and bribery.
7.Catalina Vasquez Villalpando, the Treasurer of the United States from 1989 to 1993

Pierce, the Secretary, though the "central person" in the scandal, was not charged because he made "full and public written acceptance of responsibility."

Retired Federal Judge Arlin M. Adams served as independent counsel in first five years of the prosecution, through 1995, and Larry Thompson completed the work 1995-98.

Teachers’ hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work 9 or10 months a year! It’s time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do – babysit!

That’s right. Let’s give them $3.00 an hour and only the hours they worked; not any of that silly planning time, or any time they spend before or after school. That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 to 3:00 PM with 45 min. off for lunch and plan– that equals 6 1/2 hours).

Each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children. Now how many students do they teach in a day…maybe 30? So that’s $19.50 x 30 = $585.00 a day.

What about those special education teachers and the ones with Master’s degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage ($7.75), and just to be fair, round it off to $8.00 an hour. That would be $8 X 6 1/2 hours X 30 children X 180 days = $280,800 per year.

Wait a minute — there’s something wrong here! There sure is!

The average teacher’s salary (nation wide) is $50,000. $50,000/180 days = $277.77/per day/30 students=$9.25/6.5 hours = $1.42 per hour per student–a very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even EDUCATE your kids!) WHAT A DEAL!!!!

(API-Boston) In a city beleaguered by a history of racial tensions another dark day has dawned. Large groups of mostly white people are reportedly chasing a small group of black men in the Boston area.

Others appear to have come out to “help” in anyway they can setting up tables to give out water and actually offering encouragement, “Oh yeah we try to do what we can … so we can make it a little bit easier on them”, said Terry Markle of Hopkinton.

Local police were even involved blocking off traffic and routing the chase. “Well you know these guys they done a lot to get ready for this so you know we do what we can. Let me tell they really put a lot into this” said Police officer Andy Petraic with a wry smile “but you know, it makes them happy so …”.

<snip>

In addition to the community and municipal involvement this does seem to be well coordinated and anticipated event, the “mob” even have their own website,proudly boasting of an over one hundred year history of such behavior.

“They are fast those guys but if you ask me if they can get to the big Citgo sign near Fenway.” Officer Petraic paused, “I think they’ll make it” referring to the chased group, one presumes.

Local Natick residents wait along the route in reenactment period clothing.

This was the only political type thing that I saw in the kingdom....other than the prevailing environmental message

(scene) me waiting behind a guy in his - I would guess - 60's who I overheard as being from Cincinnati:

Me: Hey are you from Ohio?
Him: yeah Cincinnati
Me: I was born in Xenia
Him: Were you there when the tornadoes hit
Me: No we lived in Yellow Springs then

--delay as the cashiers processed his order and the customer next to him --

Cashier 1 to Cashier 2 -- How do you say "tax" in Spanish....much delay after that. The customer said something that included "Brazilia". I realized that he probably speaks Portugese and not Spanish (I told the cashiers this later)

Him: You thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?
Me: (pointing to watch) what, it is taking too long?
Him: No. If THEY are goin' to come into our country they should learn to speak our language

For the first time, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has snapped photos of auroras lighting up Uranus's icy atmosphere, reported National Geographic. Two short-lived, Earth-sized storms — also known as Northern Lights — were captured by astronomers as they lit up on the day side of the gas giant in November 2011.

Uranus, the seventh planet from the sun, is known for being a bit of an oddball. According to Wired, at some unknown point in its past, the planet was knocked on its side. Its "North Pole" is now the area most planets' equators call home.

The newly found auroras appear to be tiny white dots in Hubble photos. While Earth's auroras appear as giant green curtains of light and can last hours, the new auroras seen on Uranus are fairly small and didn't last more than a few minutes.